# The most depressing novel you ever read **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 6, 2016, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-depressing-novel-you-ever-read/765209 "2016-09-06T18:27:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![garygnu](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/garygnu/32/2924_2.png) [@garygnu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/garygnu)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2016, 5:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-depressing-novel-you-ever-read/765209/141 "2016-09-08T05:01:40Z")
I’ve enjoyed some bleak books mentioned here. _Ivan Denisovich_, _Sphere,_ etc. I can understand the reaction of depression following their reading, though. _Flowers for Algernon_ I found not so much depressing as fucking terrifying. I thought _Great Expectations_ was simply irritating. But that eventually gave way to a morbid curiosity, in a “what the hell is wrong with all these idiots?” kind of way. I think I sprained muscles in my eyes from rolling at the stupid twist(s?). ---
**Author:** ![PAjoe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pajoe/32/58_2.png) [@PAjoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PAjoe)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2016, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-depressing-novel-you-ever-read/765209/142 "2016-09-08T14:24:08Z")
A Farewell to Arms ---
**Author:** ![Catamount](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/catamount/32/2840_2.png) [@Catamount](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Catamount)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2016, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-depressing-novel-you-ever-read/765209/143 "2016-09-08T15:06:08Z")
> [@cmyk](#): > > Heh. Actually despite its grim ending, it’s a fantastic story. One of the best of all time. \ It may be a good story, but too many people in my family have succumbed to dementia for me to think of that book with anything but burning rage. Fuck Algernon and his flowers. This thread made me remember why I don’t like dog stories: _Old Yeller_ and _Where the Red Fern Grows_. Don’t get a dog, kids, or you’ll have to kill it once you’ve gotten really attached to it! ---
**Author:** ![Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulf_the_Unwashed)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2016, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-depressing-novel-you-ever-read/765209/144 "2016-09-08T15:22:36Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > I just last month started it…got halfway through…and dropped it. Too depressing! It has a kind of train-wreck or Greek-tragedy inevitability to it. > > (Also…I couldn’t believe some of the shenanigans. Arresting Congress on the third day of the new administration? Or how about wrecking the entire economy…but there are still small businesses pretty much going about as normal. Nuh uh! If the monetary system collapses, you go back to barter. I thought the story over-played the predations of the wicked President.) Well, no one ever accused Sinclair Lewis of subtlety. The novel is indeed an inevitable drift toward awfulness, but the ending does dip its feet into hopefulness, especially with the famous last line: “And still Doremus goes into that red sunrise, for a Doremus Jessup can never die.” ---
**Author:** ![Dendarii\_Dame](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bbce88/32.png) [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2016, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-depressing-novel-you-ever-read/765209/145 "2016-09-08T16:24:33Z")
> [@Catamount](#): > > This thread made me remember why I don’t like dog stories: _Old Yeller_ and _Where the Red Fern Grows_. Don’t get a dog, kids, or you’ll have to kill it once you’ve gotten really attached to it! That’s why one of the first Baker’s Dozens I ever started was “Fiction with a dog as an important character where the dog doesn’t die.” ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2016, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-depressing-novel-you-ever-read/765209/146 "2016-09-08T16:46:21Z")
> [@Dendarii\_Dame](#): > > That’s why one of the first Baker’s Dozens I ever started was “Fiction with a dog as an important character where the dog doesn’t die.” Worse than fictional dogs dying heartbreaking deaths are stories about real animals dying even worse one. Is it “Invisible Man” or one of the other 1960s black autobiographies where the subject, as a child, is told to get rid of a kitten? And there’s the kitten in _Black Sunday_. That a writer could conceive of such a scene, let alone put it to paper… ---
**Author:** ![phreesh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/9fc29f/32.png) [@phreesh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/phreesh)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2016, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-depressing-novel-you-ever-read/765209/147 "2016-09-08T16:55:10Z")
Gah! I can’t believe _Angela’s Ashes_ hasn’t been mentioned. It had such critical acclaim that I was really looking forward to reading it. And then I read it and discovered that it was about how life is pretty bad, but then it gets worse and then worse and then worse still and then it ends. What a colossal bummer of a book. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2016, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-depressing-novel-you-ever-read/765209/148 "2016-09-08T17:02:33Z")
> [@phreesh](#): > > Gah! I can’t believe _Angela’s Ashes_ hasn’t been mentioned. […] > What a colossal bummer of a book. God, yes, and _'Tis_. At least Roddy Doyle understands humor; the rest of the beloved Irish writers just seem to be trying to replace the Russians at the bottom of the depression barrel. Mrs. B. loved AA and got me to read it. After about the sixth time the drunken, filthy father drank up his wages and got them booted to a yet-worse living situation, I gave up. I think that was chapter 3. ---
**Author:** ![cmyk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmyk/32/3353_2.png) [@cmyk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmyk)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2016, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-depressing-novel-you-ever-read/765209/149 "2016-09-08T17:09:54Z")
> [@Catamount](#): > > It may be a good story, but too many people in my family have succumbed to dementia for me to think of that book with anything but burning rage. Fuck Algernon and his flowers. > > This thread made me remember why I don’t like dog stories: _Old Yeller_ and _Where the Red Fern Grows_. Don’t get a dog, kids, or you’ll have to kill it once you’ve gotten really attached to it! If you haven’t already, then don’t read **There Will Come Soft Rains.** That poor dog… ---
**Author:** ![Living\_Well\_Is\_Best\_Revenge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/6bbea6/32.png) [@Living\_Well\_Is\_Best\_Revenge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Living_Well_Is_Best_Revenge)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2016, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-depressing-novel-you-ever-read/765209/150 "2016-09-08T17:16:22Z")
The first book that popped into my head was Last Exit to Brooklyn by Hubert Selby Jr. ---
**Author:** ![Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulf_the_Unwashed)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2016, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-depressing-novel-you-ever-read/765209/151 "2016-09-08T17:21:46Z")
> [@phreesh](#): > > Gah! I can’t believe _Angela’s Ashes_ hasn’t been mentioned. > > It had such critical acclaim that I was really looking forward to reading it. > > And then I read it and discovered that it was about how life is pretty bad, but then it gets worse and then worse and then worse still and then it ends. > > What a colossal bummer of a book. For me, it wasn’t the “life stinks” aspect that turned me off, it was that there was no forward movement in the book–not much plot development, not much character development, just “life sucks” “life sucks” “life sucks” “life sucks.” Well written, and evocative, but it just got so repetitive after a while. I gave up less than halfway through. ---
**Author:** ![Shamozzle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shamozzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shamozzle)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2016, 5:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-depressing-novel-you-ever-read/765209/152 "2016-09-09T05:10:59Z")
Several people have mentioned The Road. It is a bummer, for sure, but I’ll take it that you haven’t read McCarthy’s Blood Meridian. It makes The Road seem like Harry Potter. ---
**Author:** ![Sleel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/73ab20/32.png) [@Sleel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sleel)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2016, 5:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-depressing-novel-you-ever-read/765209/153 "2016-09-09T05:21:47Z")
(Insert classic Russian literature title here): Or, [Night](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_(book)), a semi-fictionalized account of Elie Wiesel’s lighthearted romp through Nazi death camps, a forced march that resulted in the deaths of 90% of the prisoners (think: ‘Richard Bachman’s’ “The Long Walk” with pre-starved Jews instead of game show contestants) and his jackanapes reintegrating into normal society afterward. Fun for the whole family! Especially when the young and adaptable Eliezer starts resenting his father for holding on to moral values that threaten to get both of them killed in the camps. Bonus lifetime haunting image of starving toddlers sucking the frostbitten meat off the ends of their fingers, leaving exposed bone behind. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2016, 1:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-depressing-novel-you-ever-read/765209/154 "2016-09-09T13:32:57Z")
_Night_ made an enduring impact, that’s for sure. I’m curious what bits were fictionalized? It read like straight-up memoir to me. If truth-based accounts are included in this assessment, while we’re on the lovely subject of the Holocaust, I dare you to read [Maus](https://www.amazon.com/Maus-Vol-1-Father-Bleeds-History/dp/0394747232) and not be totally wrecked by it. ---
**Author:** ![Satchmo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/satchmo/32/4223_2.png) [@Satchmo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Satchmo)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2016, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-depressing-novel-you-ever-read/765209/155 "2016-09-09T23:25:00Z")
Not so bad as a few upthread, but I was very depressed by “Earth Abides” by George R. Stewart. ---
**Author:** ![theR](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/977dab/32.png) [@theR](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/theR)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2016, 2:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-depressing-novel-you-ever-read/765209/156 "2016-09-10T02:09:32Z")
There have been a lot of really good, dark books mentioned already. I actually really like dark, depressing books sometimes, and I’ve read a number of the ones mentioned already. Just to mention another, I don’t think anyone mentioned _Requiem for a Dream_ yet. It just gets darker and darker, and the ending is superbly depressing. Some people don’t like the writing style, but I think it is very well suited to the topic. The movie adaptation is also very depressing. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2016, 5:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-depressing-novel-you-ever-read/765209/157 "2016-09-10T05:45:05Z")
“Angela’s Ashes” and “'Tis” weren’t novels, although it’s believed that a lot of the stories were embellished. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2016, 5:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-depressing-novel-you-ever-read/765209/158 "2016-09-10T05:51:35Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > And there’s the kitten in _Black Sunday_. That a writer could conceive of such a scene, let alone put it to paper… I just looked that up. You are right; BTW, there’s a Stephen King short story where a man committed suicide in that same manner. :eek: ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2016, 6:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-depressing-novel-you-ever-read/765209/159 "2016-09-10T06:08:11Z")
> [@nearwildheaven](#): > > “Angela’s Ashes” and “'Tis” weren’t novels, although it’s believed that a lot of the stories were embellished. That’s kind of inevitable with memoir, because human memory has a tendency to fill in the gaps without first consulting the person doing the remembering. I recently wrote a short memoir piece, and it’s amazing how much detail you have to come up with to bring a story to life, things you couldn’t possibly have known, like what someone was wearing at the time or exactly how the dialog went. Or maybe an experience has happened so many times they all blur together (did he move six times? or was it eight?) Maybe separate incidents become one in your mind. There are a million ways to misremember things, and that is just a flaw of human memory, not intentional misrepresentation by any means. I recently attended a Writer’s Workshop on the subject of memoir, and they addressed that specifically. Namely, ‘‘Of course it isn’t going to be 100% accurate, it’s essentially a dramatized version of the experience as you remember it.’’ But I think a lot of readers don’t get that. They want to be certain everything happened just so and that’s just not a realistic expectation. ---
**Author:** ![Sleel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/73ab20/32.png) [@Sleel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sleel)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2016, 8:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-depressing-novel-you-ever-read/765209/160 "2016-09-10T08:54:34Z")
> [@Spice\_Weasel](#): > > _Night_ made an enduring impact, that’s for sure. > > I’m curious what bits were fictionalized? It read like straight-up memoir to me. > > If truth-based accounts are included in this assessment, while we’re on the lovely subject of the Holocaust, I dare you to read [Maus](https://www.amazon.com/Maus-Vol-1-Father-Bleeds-History/dp/0394747232) and not be totally wrecked by it. Discussed on the Wikipedia page; the original manuscript was enormous, it was translated into French, and then heavily edited and compiled into an English translation. By that point, there was little resemblance to Wiesel’s original memoir, and a couple of people have already pointed out that memoirs themselves are almost never actual straight accounts of what actually happened. Major events are probably fairly accurate, but the narrator was more of a literary construct than a young version of Elie by that point, and details had certainly been elided. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-depressing-novel-you-ever-read/765209.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-depressing-novel-you-ever-read/765209.md?page=9)